Wimba's leadership team combines for more than a century of experience in technology.

Tommaso Trionfi, Chief Executive Officer
Mike Golde, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Steven D. Kann, Co-founder and Senior Vice President, Engineering
Yancy Oshita, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Jim Thibeau, Senior Vice President, Professional Services
Jeff Rubenstein, Vice President, Information Systems
Thomas Jepsen, Vice President, EMEA Sales
Donovan Lytle, Vice President, Publishing Services
Kristian Photopoulos, Vice President, North American Sales

Tommaso Trionfi—Chief Executive Officer
Tommaso Trionfi is chief executive officer of Wimba. He is a director of the company and reports to the Board of Directors.

Trionfi has more than 20 years of management experience with early stage and larger global software and engineering companies. Since joining Wimba in 2000, Trionfi has overseen four successful acquisitions, including Horizon Live and Wimba. He spearheaded the company’s vision of helping “people teach people” any time, place, speed, and mode, and made it universally accessible. He also worked closely with the educational community to bring assessment and content into Wimba’s collaborative learning vision through the acquisition of Brownstone, a leader in educational assessment and homework management. Prior to Wimba, Trionfi led business development at Omniticket Network, where he established strategic alliances with companies such as News Corporation and Singapore Press Holdings. Trionfi was formerly chief operating officer of Southern Europe for Colorlux, a global engineering company. Under his leadership, the region doubled sales to $60 million in three years. Before Colorlux, Trionfi was a managing founder at Delibes Consulting; and chief operating officer of Fontenay Industries, where he led operations and key acquisitions to grow the company from $15 million to over $120 million. Previously, Trionfi served in corporate finance at IBJ International, an investment banking firm based in London.

Trionfi received his MBA from INSEAD, and master's degree in Science with distinction from the University of Grenoble. He also serves as president of the U.S. Alumni Association for INSEAD.

Mike Golde—Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Mike Golde is responsible for the company's financial strategy, planning, and operations. He also plays a key role in the company’s strategic growth initiatives. Golde has nearly 20 years of broad experience in financial management with rapidly-growing companies, helping them access capital markets through public offerings and private placements, bringing mergers and acquisitions to closure, and integrating operations. Prior to Wimba, Golde was CFO and a founding member of management at Accretive Solutions, Inc., helping grow the company from start-up to $150 million in revenue. He guided an aggressive acquisition program that involved eight successful acquisitions. Golde also managed over $100 million in capital restructuring. Previously, Golde served at Randstad North America, where he was most recently controller. Before Randstad, through a series of transactions and corporate restructurings, Golde also held various financial management positions with AccuStaff Incorporated (now MPS Group) and Career Horizons. At Career Horizons, he was most recently director, Accounting. Golde began his career at Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers).

Golde received his master’s of business administration and bachelor’s of business administration from Pace University. He is a certified public accountant.

Steven Kann—Co-founder and Senior Vice President, Engineering
Steve Kann is responsible for the research, product strategy, architecture, and development of Wimba’s Collaboration Suite of products. He is a co-founder of Wimba and chief architect of Wimba Classroom, the industry’s first virtual classroom technology to use voice-activated switching to enhance the natural flow of collaboration. Kann spent his entire career on harnessing the Web to improve teaching and learning for everyone, especially people with disabilities. Prior to Wimba, Kann was founder and president of Adap-Tech, where he pioneered electronic communication aids to help better teach handicapped children. Before Adap-Tech, he was chief engineer at i/o 360 Digital Design, where he led the firm's transition to deliver complete internet and intranet application development to Fortune 100 clients such as Sony, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal. Previously, Kann served in technical leadership positions at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and The Board of Education of the City of New York.

Kann received his bachelor’s degree in Engineering from The Cooper Union. He is a thought leader on open source with several published articles in security and multimedia domains. Kann also is an industry expert on eliminating barriers in information technology for people with disabilities, a key part of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Yancy Oshita—Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Yancy Oshita is responsible for global strategy, product and industry marketing, corporate marketing, and business development. Oshita brings to Wimba more than 20 years of technology marketing and sales experience with some of the most well-known and early stage companies. Prior to Wimba, he was chief operating officer of MobileGates, where he was instrumental in repositioning the company from a software vendor to a mobile advertising network. Previously, Oshita was chief marketing officer of INFONXX, where he spearheaded the industry’s first SMS directory search service. Prior to that, Oshita served at Oracle most recently as senior director, Global Strategy and Marketing, where he led the communications and media industry strategy and go-to-market execution that resulted in over $400 million in strategic acquisitions, increased brand awareness and lead generation. He also was senior managing director, Oracle Consulting, where he delivered application and technology solutions to clients such as AT&T and Verizon. Before Oracle, Oshita held a number of senior marketing, product management, and sales roles at Teradata and NCR.

Oshita received his master’s degree in management information systems from University of Dayton, and his bachelor's degree from California State University, Northridge. His research work on information technology implementation success factors is featured in two books.

Jim Thibeau—Senior Vice President, Professional Services
Jim Thibeau is responsible for consulting, technical services, installation support and training worldwide. Thibeau oversees methodologies and tools, portfolio and offerings, service delivery and sales support. Thibeau brings to Wimba over 20 years of services and consulting experience with software and system integration companies. He was previously at vice president, North America Higher Education Services for Blackboard, where he drove over $12 million in annual revenue and improved consulting capabilities. Prior to Blackboard, Thibeau was vice president, Global Professional Services of WebCT. Under his leadership, the company expanded service offerings and grew revenue an average of 50% annually over four years. Before WebCT, Thibeau was regional vice president for Baydon Solutions, where he delivered knowledge management solutions to clients such as Charles Schwab and United Airlines. Previously, Thibeau held a number of senior professional services roles at Platinum Technology (now CA) and WexTech Systems. He also held positions of increasing responsibility at Information Mapping, most recently as director, Product Development.

Thibeau received his master’s of history from Boston University, and his bachelor’s of history from University of New Hampshire. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Florence Crittenton League, a 100 year-old non-profit adoption agency.

Jeff Rubenstein—Vice President, Information Systems
Jeff Rubenstein is responsible for systems operations, IT Helpdesk and technical support with a focus on driving Wimba’s continued scalability, availability, and customer satisfaction of the company’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) capabilities. He also oversees the company’s internal systems and processes. Rubenstein was previously vice president, Product Management. Rubenstein brings to Wimba over 15 years of product management, curriculum design, eLearning, and publishing experience in the education industry. Prior to Wimba, he held positions of increasing responsibility at The Princeton Review. Most recently he was vice president, Technology Development, where he led the development of eLearning and student management technologies. Under his leadership, the company expanded online authoring and channel reach for its content. Prior to this, Rubenstein was assistant vice president, Product Development and Publishing, where he grew publishing revenues 30% in three years and spearheaded the first online book companion tools.

Rubenstein received his master’s of philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, and bachelor’s degree from Reed College. He is the author of several books on test preparation and has been quoted as an expert on assessment by Time Magazine, Industry Standard, MSNBC, and other media.

Thomas Jepsen—Vice President, EMEA Sales
Thomas Jepsen, Danish, brings extensive experience in web-based business development from his experiences as co-founder of French-based Office Acrobat and as international project manager for Loewe New Media, a German software company based in Palo Alto. Fluent in Danish, French, English and German, Mr. Jepsen has worked in Denmark, Brazil, U.S., Germany and France, and is a cum laude graduate from the University of San Francisco in International Business.

Donovan Lytle—Vice President, Publishing Services
Donovan Lytle is responsible for new business and partnership ventures, and vertical market development, most notably within language learning. Donovan joined Wimba in 2001, shortly after its inception, and developed the US higher education, K-12 and publishing markets, helping establish Wimba as a major player in the education space. Prior to joining Wimba, Donovan was Director of Development at the English Language Institute at the University of Montana where he taught English as a Second Language and directed the institute's growth within the Linguistics program. He has also lived and taught in Japan and China, worked as a copywriter for a large regional advertising agency, and as a reporter / photographer for his family.s newspapers. Donovan holds an MA in Linguistics from the University of Montana and has a particular interest in Native American storytelling and rhetorical structures.

Kristian Photopoulos—Vice President, North American Sales
As Vice President of Sales, Kristian Photopoulos is responsible for managing the direct sales organization and strategic sales. Prior to joining the company, Kristian served as a Regional Director of Sales for Raindance Communications, a web conferencing company, where he was responsible for building high performing sales teams and securing business with Fortune 500 companies resulting in revenue growth of over $40 million in 18 months. Prior to Raindance, Kristian served in a variety of sales and management positions at CBS and Clear Channel Communications. Kristian received his B.S. degree in marketing management from the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University.

Walter H. Barandiaran
Chairman
Wimba

Managing Partner
Argentum Group

Tommaso Trionfi
CEO
Wimba

Carmen Scarpa
Managing Director
Tudor Investment Corporation

Carol Vallone
Former CEO
WebCT

Kylie A. D. Sachs
Partner
Ascend Venture Group